January 24, 2002

After a strange bout of depression last night, I thought that I would try to have a little bit of fun in the middle of the week. I didn't want to sit home and fight the kind of tears I fought, and lost to, last night. So I was going to sit in a coffee shop and study for a little while and be collegiate, soak in academia for a little while before going out with a few friends. By the time the going out with a few friends part was to take place, most people had lost their enthusiasm.

That's how my night of potential fun turned into more of the usual. Lately it has been very difficult to talk to my friends here on campus. Well, just one. It could be just that I am spending an enormous amount of time with him, or that he is simply becoming overly dependent. Either way, I want to not feel annoyed by his presence, his looks, his smile. I think I need some time to myself. I thought perhaps that I'd lie in bed and read until I became sleepy.

I enter my dorm room to find my roommate cuddling sans clothing with her Sasquatch boyfriend listening to my music. Ordinarily I would be almost glad that her musical tastes are expanding beyond "Dance Grooves of the 80s" (Are y'all ready for this?) and Enrique Iglesias (I can be your hero, baby). Tonight, though, it bugged the shit out of me just thinking that she touched my stereo. Or even worse, that the naked Sasquatch might have pressed the play button on it.

A walk was in order.

I walked around campus for a little while before I went back, noticing that even at midnight New Orleans does not leave room for comfort.

Another day, another daylog....

Today I am a Biology teacher giving students a test. Its very interesting when students give a test and there is a sub. The students tend to flip out, to have more questions and have an almost frightened look on thier face. It is almost like "the real teacher is not here, so I can't get my questions answered, I don't know what to do...." Its wierd, I would not have thought it myself. bit its something I have seen everytime I have subbed and given a test. It is worse the higher level the class is. For example, in an Advanced Math class, the students, mostly honor students almost did not know how to function it was so bad. They had questions about the simplest problems and had a hard time even understanding what the question was. All because the regular teacher wasn't there.

The best part about being a sub is when the teacher has last lunch and last hour as a planning period or prep. As a sub, I don't need a prep and I don't really need to eat lunch, nothing is forcing me to stay on days like that..... It also means that I'm done around 12:30 or even earlier depending on the school with a "full" day of work.

I feel like I am losing her. I've lost her as a girlfriend, as someone who loves me. I don't want to lose her as a friend, but now, I hardly talk to her, even though I want to more than anything. Sure, she doesn't love me, but I do. I want her to trust me again, talk to me all the time again.

I don't know what I did to deserve this, it goes from her kissing me, saying she is safe, secure, happy around me, to dumping me 3 days later.

I don't know.

I cried for an hour again last night, just like I have for the past 10 days. Maybe I'm just a baby, no that's not it. She said she'd love me forever and always and all that sappy stuff, but it was earnest just like when I said she was beautiful, because she IS. She sounded like she meant it when she said it, she did mean it then. I don't know what went wrong.

Maybe 100% wasn't enough, maybe I wasn't nice enough. I mean, I dedicated myself to her. I didn't neglect her, we never fought, never yelled, I never hit her. I loved her and I still do. This is why it sucks, because it just suddenly ended, because I tried my hardest, I cared as much as possible and it failed. I had no idea it was coming. I lost something that I care for more than anything, am I supposed to be happy? I think I should be depressed, I worked my hardest and couldn't even do this right. It's so sad, because I want more than anything for it to work out...but there is nothing I can do. It's not obsession, I don't lie. I said I loved her and I meant it.

Didn't she?

All the times when she went out of her way to see me. All the things we did together...that was just "friend" stuff? No, I'm not talking about making out, I'm talking about going out of every weekend, doing things with her. Her getting excited to see me during the week at the mall, asking her mom for a ride...it's so depressing.

Damnit all to hell.

So a couple weeks ago I was viciously personally attacked by a crazy woman. These things happen. If only it just happened once.

Her ex and I hung out last night and he attacked me in a way... he tends to hassle me a lot, and I deserve it. I'm really uptight, and not honest w/ myself, and the dumbest things strike me as really important when I know, logically, that they're not.

Okay.

But last night I could only hear is ex-girlfreind in his words. Last night he gave me shit and I was feeling really vulnerable and I couldn't really take it.

Let me just say that this freind is one of the only people in my life who has ever noticed when I pretended things were okay and they weren't. It was uncanny. Most of the time if something is bothering me I act out, but when something's really deep I don't, I pretend it's okay (probably unconvincingly, but enough that my parents don't notice and so on), and this freind has always caught me and talked to me. I've known him for two years, and as far as I can recall he's the only friend (as in completely platonic-- one lover noticed as well) I've ever had who's ever picked up on my unspoken pain. I can't help the sense that last night he picked up on my weakness and targeted them. I don't really have any hard evidence for this, except that he hit every single weak spot and when I finally called him on one thing that I could talk to him about he laughed in my face.

We were sitting in this noisy club and he kept calling me pretentious. This is a problem for me, because at school, there are times when you're supposed to play this pointless 'smarter than thou, better informed than thou' sort of game, (not a lot at Wells but it still happens, especially when chatting with Cornell students) and I refuse to play it. That's not what learning is about, that's not what life is about, so it shouldn't be what school is about. But I read a lot and I can't really keep from talking about what I'm learning about. This is incredibly annoying when you're at a party or a night club, but he didn't say "I don't want to talk about this right now" he didn't change the subject, which is how he used to handle me, he called me names. That's bullshit. So I told him, 'hey look, this is something I refuse to do at school and I get judged for it, like I'm some other species or a dirty girl or less intelligent or something, and that's annoying but I don't mind taking it, but then I come into town and you call me pretentious because I'm telling you something you could be interested in, you dick' (we've actually taught each other a lot in the past). He laughed at me, and said, 'I called you pretentious and you gave me a lecture' and I laughed because that was true and that's the sort of thing I need freinds like him for and I loved him right then. Then he looked at me and said, 'You're not serious are you?' and I looked him straight in the eye and said 'Yes!' and he laughed more, and harder, and I couldn't deal with it. It was like he didn't actually hear me. He's not so stupid that he can't tell when someone he's known for 2 years levels with him. He played my emotions because he could.

My freind's ex-girlfreind likes to have control of him. She hates me for any number of reasons, but I can't help thinking that one of them is that she dropped out of school pretty early even though she was really good at it, and I think it depresses her to see someone with whom she has a lot in common in school and loving it. I am annoying to her, but there are parts of my life I think she might like, but that she thinks she can't have. So she started calling me pretentious first, and I get the feeling that my freind picked it up from her, as well as his sudden total disinterest in anything much.

He's not in school, in fact he dropped out of high school (like me) and hasn't been back for anything, ever (unlike me) but his mind is still active, and he's really really smart (smarter than me). He used to ask me questions about things, and ask other people he knew things, all sorts of random stuff, and we would have these amazing discussions about ideas, which is what I was hoping for when I went to college (sigh).

But those conversations appear to be over now. When she's in town she won't let me near him, and when I do get near him, he just repeats what she says about me. It's like he's gone and died.

I lasted for 18 years with out a freind as amazing as him, I guess I can grow old and die with out one. I left the club last night, and I said "I've had enough, fuck you, I'll see you in Hell". I mourn him now as if he actually had died, or perhaps as if I did.

Some small joys in life never get old. Wireless Internet in class is one of these things. My school (University of Virginia) has adopted an initiative to extend the wireless network to the entire campus (or grounds to be exact). While I respect it from a technological standpoint, I question it from a student's standpoint. What possible benefit can this innovation really have? How much useful information is there on the Internet?

I shouldn't complain, though. I'm the only one with a laptop in this entire 500 person lecture, and even if I wasn't, I doubt the others would be sufficiently equipped. Speaking of this lecture, it's History of Jazz, a seemingly interesting and exciting class that we should all "feel very lucky to be able to take it," since "ten years ago this class wouldn't exist." Well, I think it sucks. Dissecting an such an emotional form of expression really ruins the feeling. Making sweeping generalizations about jazz by pointing out specific examples cheapens the performers' creative expression.

Luckily this is my last day in this class. In fact, I'm only sitting in here for the Internet connection. When jazz becomes equivolent to classical in the mind of youth, blame this class and others like it.

I saw her again today. I was walking towards Aldi, just walking out of Laserklinik to have the wound (a wart, said the doctor(s)) on the middle finger on my right hand looked at. "Come back in 4 weeks", the doctor said 5 weeks ago, after applying a big bandage over my liquid-Nitrogen-frozen finger, a bandage that would later turn red as it absorbed blood. Now the wound from that removal hadn't healed completely, so the nice young lady dermatologist told me to come back in another 4 weeks. I had just taken out my electronic organizer to put this date in...

"Hey keep your eyes on the sidewalk when walking!", I heard a shout. I looked up, and there she was, walking towards my direction, smiling, her right hand bonded with the left of her boyfriend's. One and a half meters in front of me. One meter. As we slowly stopped we kept walking past each other, having to turn ourselves around to face each other. Maybe it's a social instinct; if you don't particularly want to talk to a person you just ran into, just keep walking, and stop only when that person is no longer blocking you from your original destination. We both (Or should it be "all three of us"? I didn't even acknowledge the loser's presence) did it.

It all just happened too fast. "Where are you going?" she asked before I even had a chance to put on my fake "I hate you, fuck off." face. "Uhh...", I searched for the name of the supermarket where I was heading to. Later, as I was rationalizing this I realize I don't think in words. When I think I want to shop, I would visualize the place, and me being there doing the shopping. My brain just drives my body automatically to this nameless place that just popped up in my head. "Aldi.", I said after that pause. Did I detect a hint of disbelief in that short moment of seeming hesitation? Did she think I was lying? I don't know. Did she really give a fuck anyway where I was going? Fuck you, you bitch.

Anger sets in, in bouts, long after the seemingly harmless encounter.

"Oh, ok then.", she said. "See ya!", she said.

I stayed silent, mumbling only a bye.

All along the 5 or so seconds as this happened I avoided looking directly at her. Our only eye contact probably lasted less than 0.1 of a second long, as I looked up to see who it was who just spoke out loud. The mind is an amazing thing, it only took that long to realize that it was getting into one of those not-really-uncomfortable-but-preferably-avoided situations.

As I continued on walking, I began to wonder where they were going. The deciseconds pause she gave me after I answered her question was perhaps too long to be comfortable for her. I can't blame her, I've been practicing the art of staying comfortable during uncomfortable silences, staying silent and leaving only the person to whom I did not want to talk uncomfortable. But the pause was too short for me to utter her question back at her. I'm not sure that I would have, anyway.

All along, I had my organizer in my hands, holding it with both of them like it was a game pad; my index fingers supporting it on the bottom, the lower parts of my thumbs holding it so it doesn't tumble over, the top of the thumbs ready to input data. (Using the keyboard. It's not a PDA.) That brief interruption over, I returned to the task at hand and typed "aldi" into the scheduler.

It was a slow and boring day at work. Major highlight was the idiocity of one customer who called in for support. He told me that if he could not get his software working (damn Conexant modems again), he would return all of his pagers back to the company that sold him the service. The catch here is that my employer is separate from the paging companies and we could care less what the paging companies do. The paging companies act as resellers of our software.

On the way in, I got stuck in a traffic jam. Turns out that right near the exit where I get off at to go to work on the interstate was an accident. Don't know exact details about what happened, but my boss heard the report on the radio and knew that I was going to be late.

What made my day was at the end of the day, my girlfriend called me on my cell phone from Georgia. She told me she was off to class, and I was on my way out the door and headed home for the day. We spoke for around 15 minutes before I had to hang up in order to be able to safely drive my car home in heavy traffic.

I turned in shortly after 11pm because I have to be up early the next day in order to make a business meeting on time in the morning.

Yesterday's lunch was more crowded. The tribunal brought on a female human and a female dwarf. One was from the tribe of Candle while the other was from the tribe that bestowed upon the ring-bearer his Ring of Class. These two women, the dwarf, and I rode together to a subterranean gathering place for our daily meal. There, we were joined by three others that the elf had brought with him, at least one other of which was also an elf. The races of the remaining two escape me. We would learn soon enough.

Over a lunch of sandwishes, of which I ordered the philly cheesesteak, we discussed the ongoing war in Europe. It almost seemed like a game of Diplomacy. England had taken St. Petersburg during the winter with a little help from divine intervention, while Austria was barely surviving after being backstabbed by long time mate - Turkey. England and Turkey were the current two largest empires in Europe. There was no thought of taking the war to the Middle East.

The toothpick wielder directed England, while the ring-bearer held on to what was left of Russia. I listened attentively. It was a fascinating tale of mortal intrigue... one in which friendships could easily be broken. However, the fellowship remained intact.

During this time, the female elf and female human were engaged in conversation with the remaining elf. The female human would be expecting a child soon. They talked of identical names of mates, like John and MyGreg. It was a code beyond our feeble understanding. We four rode back in the same way... the ring-bearer on a horse from the tribe of life.

That night, the toothpick wielder and I explored the vastness of Gameworks and directed an N'Sync video called "Bai-bai-bai". His masterful use of the Toothpick of Disbelief was a wonder to behold.